


Blood and Tears

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Abuse, M/M, Soulmate AU, bro is fuckening awful, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:04:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: John definitely has a soulmate. He sees (and worries about) the proof of it on his skin every day. What he doesn't have is any idea who his soulmate is.In hindsight, it probably should have been obvious.Soulmate au (of course) where your soulmate's injuries show as dark marks on your skin and their tears show as brighter, glowing ones. (cliche? Maybe. But fuck it.)





	1. Chapter 1

You don't even know who your soulmate is, but they get hurt a lot. Your skin's more or less always marked up from it, dark red and blue streaks that show up anywhere from your hips to your neck, up and down your arms or around your torso. You don't know what the heck they're getting into, but it's got to hurt and you worry about them. 

They don't cry all that often, though. Not as far as you know. Sure, sometimes you wake up with your face and hands glowing from somebody else's tears, but that's rare enough that you don't expect it when it happens. It's not like the other marks, which you check for every day and worry over probably way too much. Covering them up probably isn't the best course of action, but at least you don't have people at school asking questions. Basically the only person who actually knows is your dad, because hiding anything from him is more complicated than you actually want to deal with long-term. 

Anyway, today is a shit day. So far...you've walked into a door because you had your glasses off and thought you could handle walking ten feet in the dark (spoiler: you couldn't), and now you look like someone punched you in the face. Your rabbit ate something bad—you're not totally sure what, but when the poor bunny's having seizures it's pretty obvious there's something wrong. And you couldn't even be the one to run him to the vet; no, you still have school. The finishing touch would have to be the new tracery of marks all along your chest and left arm. Apparently your soulmate isn't having such a great day either. 

You wonder how open Dave's going to be to having you complain/lowkey beg for reassurance today. Hopefully somewhat. He'll want to hear about Venkman, at least; even if he goes on and on about how rabbits are stupid little prey animals and how the main positive point about them is that they taste delicious, he still pets him every time he comes over. Although telling him "yeah, I walked into a door" is going to open you up to so much more teasing. 

Of course, Dave is missing for most of the morning. Is he actually avoiding you? You know he doesn't have that many classes in common with you anymore, so maybe you've managed to legit miss each other, but the odds on that seem a little long. He can't be missing school again—you know for a fact that he already hit the point where he's going to get in trouble if he just ditches—and if he was out sick, he'd have texted you to complain. 

You're not all that great at surreptitious phone-checking, but you risk it halfway through calculus anyway. Three texts to Dave, asking him if he's actually here, telling him about your rabbit, and threatening him with doom if he doesn't meet you on the next free period. One to your dad, asking about Venkman. You probably won't get a good or bad answer to that one in the next three hours at least; your dad sucks at checking and replying to texts. It still helps you to calm down a bit. After that, you decide you need to stop messing with your phone under the desk; the teacher's giving you disapproving looks. If you didn't so obviously have your work already finished you'd be in trouble. 

As soon as it's safely back in your pocket your phone buzzes. Dave. Welp, he can wait. Otherwise you're probably going to lose your phone, and that would suck. 

The last ten minutes of class seems like forever, but you're fumbling your phone out with one hand as you get back into the hall, checking your messages again. Turns out you were wrong: it's not Dave texting you, it's your dad. They have to do surgery on Venkman...fuck. There's virtually zero chance of him coming home, even though he doesn't say that in the text you still know it. You love that rabbit. You've had him since he was a quarter of the size he is now, you've raised him and tried to train him for five years, this...this fucking sucks. 

"John, what the hell?" 

You probably would have walked past Dave if he hadn't said something. He grabs the arm that's not holding your phone, pulling you to a stop. "Don't give me shit right now, dude." You don't look up at him right away, blinking a couple times to get your eyes to clear and typing out a reply to your dad, telling him to keep telling you what's going on with Venkman. And yeah, you swipe at your eyes before you look up. "I'm having the worst day possi—" 

What the fuck. 

Dave doesn't have that sarcastic teasing look on his face. Instead he's got a much rarer look, mostly hidden because he's an idiot who can't show anything without mostly covering it up but hey you know him well enough to see anyway: concern. Sympathy. He's also got something else on his face—blue and red swirls outlining the whole area around his right eye, not all the way covered by his shades, and glowing blue streaks across his cheeks. 

Oh, shit. Oh. Shit. Oh shit. 

Dave apparently hasn't even kind of got it yet; he just frowns at you and shakes his head, letting go of your arm and taking a step back out of whatever personal space bubble he's outlined. "Your bunny—" 

"Uh. Forget Venkman. For a second." Right eye. You actually think about which side of your face aches, just to be sure—yep, it's the right one. Oh god. Which means... 

Dave tries to dodge when you go to grab his arm, and if he'd had any warning at all he might've managed it. Too bad for him you're doing this on impulse. You get ahold of him, he yelps as you pull his sleeve up and stifles it almost immediately as he twists away from you. 

"Don't fucking do that, John!" Dave almost snarls it, but you saw what you thought you'd see. His arm's bruised and bandaged along the worst of the marks on your arm—it matches. Plus the periphery of your vision is lighting up red to go with the tears in his eyes. 

Shit, you didn't mean to hurt him. 

"Dave—" 

"Don't, I don't wanna hear it." And he's mad now. Or upset at least. "I'm sorry about your rabbit, but you do that again and I'm gonna..."

Dave trails off. You can't see his eyes behind those stupid shades and that throws your ability to judge his reaction all off, but getting him to shut up at all is a feat. He's staring at your arm, where you've rolled your own sleeve up to show the mirrored marks across your skin. It's probably almost a minute before he looks up at you, hesitates for a second, and takes his shades off, tucking them into the neckline of his shirt. 

Okay, if your bruising is as bad as the marks on his face you must look horrible. 

"Do you see where I'm going with this, Dave?" you ask him. God, this means he's the one getting beat up at least once a week, and you feel sick realizing that. "We—" 

"Don't say it." He looks like he's going to throw up. You really didn't expect this to go this way. 

"...okay? If. You're not okay with it, I guess we can pretend it's not a thing?" Yeah, no, you can't do that, but if Dave's this upset...he's your friend first, you can straight-out forget whatever else if you need to. "I mean it's still a thing, I cant exactly make it stop being a thing but we don't have to—"

"Shut. Up." Dave shuts his eyes for a second, then opens them again to frown at you. "I know. Remember when you jumped off the fucking swingset in fifth grade and broke your arm?"

"Of course I—" 

"Sliced your hand open trying to cut carrots or some shit. You had to have stitches and I wore sleeves that were too long for like two weeks." 

"I—" 

"You cry every time you watch The Princess Bride. Every fucking time. We've watched it seven times." 

"...oh." Blushing. You are blushing. This is lame. You're lame. Miraculously, Dave doesn't call you on that. He's making a decent effort to not look at you, actually. "So...when did you figure it out?" 

That gets you a huff from him, and a very reluctantly muttered answer that you're eighty percent sure you misheard. 

"Third grade?!" Except Dave's nodding. "What—what the fuck, Dave?" 

"If you knew it was me you were gonna ask about—" He stutters, fumbles for words for a minute, then just jerks his hand up to tap at his chest, the place where you've got marks on yours. 

"Of course I'm going to ask—" 

"Yeah, I know. Don't." 

"But you—" 

"Nope. Don't. Don't do it." He huffs, crossing his arms across his chest and finally looking at you again. Eye contact isn't all that reassuring in this instance; he's pretty damn good at wiping everything off his face when he wants to. You can't read him at all, right now, but he's talking too fast to be as calm as he's trying to pretend he is. "You know it's not something new. And he isn't gonna just stop, so how about you let it go and save us both a fuckton of trouble?" 

"How about no?" Is he going to flip out if you get closer to him? Maybe. Probably. You're going to stay right where you are, you guess...for now at least. "...'he.' Who's 'he,' your bro?" 

That gets you a little crack in Dave's shell, for just a second. He twitches, the blank expression gives way to panic for just a second before he gets it under control again, and you know you're right whether or not he's going to admit it. "Doesn't matter." 

"Dave—" 

"Doesn't matter, I said. Take a fucking hint, shithead." He puts a vindictive twist on most of the last sentence, but that feels even less real than the unbothered look on his face right now. "I've been dealing with this and I can keep dealing with it, you can't—" 

"He hurts you! You shouldn't have to deal with it, that's fucking stupid—" 

"You can't do anything about it, John!" He's not quite yelling at this point, catching himself at the end of that sentence and shoving whatever else he has to say down, glancing around to see if anyone else is listening. (As far as you can tell, no one is. Most people with any sense are eating lunch right now; this is as close to private as you can get in a school hallway in the daytime. Dave still lowers his voice back down to below normal conversation level.) "He's fucking told me, he promised me, you don't get it..." 

"What? What did he promise you? That he'd beat you up worse if you told anybody?" 

Shit, that gets another flinch, and his next words come out somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. "He doesn't beat me up. Don't fucking say that, somebody's gonna hear you—" 

"Good!" 

"Not good! If he thinks there's—if he thinks somebody knows—" Dave is struggling with his words again, face twisting as he tries to keep that stupid cool mask on, both hands gripping at his shirt. Have you ever seen him this upset before? You don't think so. "He—you don't—fuck. You don't get it." 

"...guess I don't." You get that he's scared. That much you definitely get. "If I let it go for right now, you think you can come stay the night tonight and actually explain what I don't get then? Uh." Oh, yeah, the reason you needed to talk to him in the first place. "And maybe deal with me being an emotional jackass over a rabbit." 

He blinks—apparently he forgot Venkman for a minute too—then nods quickly, fumbling for his shades and putting them back on. "Stay over? Yeah. Talk about this? You have no idea how much I don't want to—" 

"Dave—" 

"Calm the fuck down, I'm not giving you a no there. Just." One hand comes up, rubs at his forehead for a minute before Dave just shrugs and spreads his hands. "I got a class, man. Meet you after school?" 

Well, he didn't say no. "Yeah. Later, Dave." But he's already going, not even bothering to reply to you other than a quick wave over his shoulder. 

Is he going to just ditch you and not show? Maybe. Probably not. Hopefully not. 

You can't decide whether these developments make this day better or worse.


	2. Chapter 2

He's not on the bus, which isn't surprising. He doesn't take the same bus to and from school as you do, and getting on the wrong one would require either significant subterfuge or an explanation from a parent—or guardian in Dave's case. The first one is possible but complicated, the second one totally out of the question. Your dad actually texts you on the ride home—he still doesn't have news about Venkman (which means he's not dead at least, they'd say if he was, that's good right?) and he (your dad, not your rabbit) might not be home until late. Work stuff. Or something. 

If Dave actually shows, that means you get to talk in privacy. If he doesn't then you get to be bored in the house by yourself. Cross your fingers for the former. 

Actually, Dave somehow makes it to your house before you do. When you step off the bus he's already sitting on the front steps, shoving his phone in his pocket and offering you a grin as he gets to his feet. (Okay, just as a question, how the hell did he manage to get here first?) 

"I'm seriously hoping you still have my stuff I left here last time I slept over, dude," he says before you can ask. "Otherwise I'm gonna be stealing your clothes for the night."

"Like you don't anyway?" You shake your head, unlocking the door and shoving Dave inside—although you're careful to keep your hands off his left arm. "You're welcome to my shit, anyway, but your stuff's in the drawer. It's your drawer now." It's nice to know Dave's not the only one who just talks when he's nervous. You can tell you're doing that, right now. "Dad's not home, by the way. He might not be home until later tonight but he said he was okay with you staying over—" 

"Yeah. Awesome." You've been pushing Dave towards your room, and up till now he's just been going along with it. As you push him through the door, though, he steps away. "...you wanted to talk about...shit. Right?" When you nod he rakes one hand through his hair, sighs, and nods at the door behind you. "Lock it." 

"There's nobody here—" 

"C'mon, dude. You want me to ask nicely? Please lock the goddamn door." 

Some of that is sarcastic. Some of it is genuine. Either way, you nod and turn away to mess with the stupid sticky lock on your door. It takes you a minute to get it, and when you turn back Dave's sitting in a halfassed lotus position on the floor by your bed, his shades safely out of the way on the bed itself as he struggles his way out of his shirt. 

"Dave—" 

"Give me a fucking minute," he mumbles, trying to get it over his head without moving the bandaged arm all that much. "Shit hurts, it's fucking—hey!" 

He yelps when you kneel down beside him and pull on the sleeve where it's stuck, but he doesn't shove you back and in another second the shirt's on the floor and Dave's sitting there with his hands on his knees and his eyes squeezed shut. And you get a look at him. 

It actually hurts. You thought the phrase "hurts your heart" was just a figure of speech, but god, he looks like...you don't know what he looks like. There's so many scars. That's horrible, but the fact that you recognize some of them, if you actually thought about it you'd recognize every one of them? That's worse. 

"John?" Dave says in a strained voice after a couple seconds of you just gaping at him like an idiot. He doesn't open his eyes. "Unless you want me to have a—a fucking meltdown ri...right here and now, you need to. Say something." 

You don't know what the fuck to say, but you open your mouth and something comes out anyway. 

"This one scared me." He twitches when you trace a thick scar that runs along his side, between two of his ribs, but he doesn't flinch back. "I looked up where you had to get stabbed for it to hit your heart, and that's...pretty close." 

Dave swallows hard, shakes his head. "He doesn't stab." It's pretty much a whisper. "Not toward the chest, that's how you kill somebody." 

"Don't tell me he couldn't've killed you with some of these." You have to keep glancing at his face—if he wants you to back off, you want to know before he says it—but his expression doesn't change as you pick up his left hand and hold it palm-up, looking for and finding the shadows of another terrifying set of marks you remember from your own arm. Yeah, they're there, and you carefully trace the cluster of straight-line scars that run from his wrist almost to his elbow. "These—" 

The noise Dave makes is pained and almost apologetic, and his eyes open for just a second before shutting firmly again. "Yeah. Those. Those. Should've killed me, if I'd fucking done them right or—or made sure he was actually gone so he couldn't fucking stop me." 

It takes you a minute to work out the meaning of what he just said. 

"Dave—" 

"Don't." 

"You—" 

"Don't." Now he actually does look at you, and there's something bright and hurt and defiant in his red eyes, not so much telling you not to press that subject as daring you to do it. "Don't you fucking ask me why, don't tell me I better not do it again, I—he fucking told me, he told me, he beat the shit out of me and gave me the fu—fucking talk about how if I ever cut myself, if I tri—if I tried to get away from him that way he'd take everything I could use to do it and make me wish I'd cut my fucking throat instead of my wrists—" 

He's managed to hold an almost neutral mask even though his breath keeps catching and breaking up his words, but it just crumbles now, his face twisting in what might as well be physical pain. You're holding the wrist of one hand, he doesn't even try to pull back from that, but his other hand comes up to cover as much of his face as he can, and you can see his shoulders jerk as he fights to keep his gasps from turning into sobs. 

"I'm sorry," you tell him, because you don't know what the fuck else to say, and you move your hand down from his wrist to hold onto his hand instead, noticing the red streaks on your fingers and not saying anything about them. He knows he's crying. "You could've told me, you should've told me, my dad would've fixed it so you could get away from him—" 

"You don't get it." That's your new least favorite phrase. Dave takes his hand away, looks at you and grimaces—you know he's seeing the red marks down your face, you can see the matching wet trails down his. "He—" Another sigh, and his mouth twists and his eyes close again as he squeezes your hand, his free hand finding his discarded shirt and twisting the material nervously. "It's something he says every fucking time he fucks up and there's a—every time I get hurt somewhere it might show if I'm not careful. 'If anybody finds out, we leave.'" 

Those six words come out like something he's heard or said a few thousand times before. 

"I'm not going to let you leave, Dave." You don't know if he realizes how much you mean that. He's not even going back to that apartment, not without you and your dad and preferably some cops. With guns. "I swear." 

"You don't get it, you don't—" Dave shivers, hard, and forces himself to be still with a visible effort. He looks up at you, hesitates for a good ten seconds, then gingerly scoots close enough to lean on you, relaxing a little when you immediately wrap one arm around his shoulders. "I. I thought he was gonna do it this morning, I really did. Just start shoving stuff in bags and go, make me come with him...he was pissed that I had marks on me that he didn't put there, if he'd fucking thought it through and figured out that it meant somebody had marks from the shit he did—" 

You want to wince at how Dave's voice wavers and cracks at the end of that sentence, but no. You're not going to do that. Instead you reach across with your free hand and pushing at his hands where they're twisting in his lap, trying to get him to quit before he hurts himself. 

He does, grabbing your hand instead. When you look back up at his face his eyes are closed again. "Dave?" 

"Can't go back," he mumbles, and even though he can't see it you shake your head. 

"You don't have to." 

"Eventually...I kinda do, dude. He's fucking evil but he's still the one who's got custody of me, you know that." 

"I don't give a shit, you're not going back. My dad—" 

You did not expect the convulsive tightening of both his hands on yours. It hurts. No way are you trying to get your hand back, though. "You can't tell your dad, are you fucking crazy—" Okay, that's a stupid amount of fear in his voice. 

"Dave, would you just calm down?" 

"You don't get it, he'd come over here and beat the crap out of anyone in his way and I'd be gone, fuck knows where, you don't know him, if he hurts you I swear to god—"

"Dave! Dave. Dave. Hey. Dave." He tries to keep talking over you at the first iteration, shakes his head mutely for the next few, and finally just slumps against you, not even trying to hide how he's shaking now. "He's not coming to get you." 

"You don't—" 

"I know, I don't get it, but I'm trying, okay? I want to help you." 

"Can't," he says, very quietly. 

"Fuck can't. I'm going to." When he shakes his head you huff and pull him over so you can wrap both arms around him, hoping that he'll let you provide this token protection and not pull back. "You're staying here." 

"I can't do that forever." 

"Yes you can." 

"Your dad—" 

"Gets almost as upset about what happens to my soulmate as I do, when he sees the marks. He won't send you away." 

Dave stiffens when you say your dad knows about the marks, but sighs after a second and relaxes again, finally opening his eyes to look up at you. "Bro's gonna just bullshit his way out of anything you try to pin on him, you know," he mumbles. "Always does." 

"Dave, if I have to figure out how to buy a gun and use it on him to keep him away from you I will." And because he just snorts tiredly and rolls his eyes at that statement, "I'm not joking. I'll email Jade—" 

"No, yeah, okay. Okay." Dave sighs, shrugs, and relaxes fully against you, letting his head drop onto your shoulder. "I believe you. I'm gonna stay here, the shit with Bro'll just fucking work out one way or another, it'll be fucking fine...I'm tired, man." 

"Go to sleep." 

"On you?" 

"Well, duh. Unless you really want to get up—" 

Dave just shakes his head, shifts just a bit, and goes almost completely still. He wasn't kidding about being tired—when you get curious, a couple minutes later, and push gently at his arm, he's limp, unresisting. You've literally never seen anyone fall asleep this fast.


	3. Chapter 3

Dave's still asleep when your phone buzzes. You think about checking it, and decide that it's not worth waking him up for. If it goes off again you can check it. 

Of course, it doesn't, and maybe ten minutes later the door to your room opens. (Damn broken lock.) Your dad stares at you and Dave for maybe a minute, opening his mouth for a question that's almost certainly going to wake Dave up and panic him again. 

You gesture frantically at him with your free hand before he actually says anything, making a variety of useless motions before you actually remember the universal sign for quiet—finger across your lips, and a throat-cutting gesture for good measure. This seems to confuse him more than anything else, but he still nods. You suck at lip-reading, but you're pretty sure he mouths "kitchen" at you as he backs out and carefully closes the door again. 

Okay, so you have to wake Dave up now, at least for a minute. "Dude. Hey." 

He just groans as you move away from him a little, being careful to hold him up until he's awake enough to do it himself. "Fuck..." 

"C'mon, dad just texted me. I gotta go talk to him." 

He cracks open one eye, shaking his head doggedly. "How 'bout no?" 

"Dave." He sighs as you give him a gentle shove, finally leaning back against the bed instead of on you. "It'll be a minute, then you can go back to sleeping on me if you want."

"God, it sounds dirty when you say it." 

"That's gay." 

"Maybe a lil' bit, yeah." He gives you a fuzzy grin as you get up and head into the kitchen. 

Your dad is in the kitchen, like he said he'd be. As a nice surprise, so is Venkman. His cage is sitting on the counter, and he's hunched up in the corner, chewing on his food bowl and looking angry about the fact that his entire side's been shaved. He looks ridiculous, but hey! He's alive! 

"Don't pick him up," your dad advises as you open the cage door. 

"Yeah, I can see the stitches." He hops toward you as you put your hand inside, gently nipping your finger as you reach over to scratch behind his ears. "...you saw Dave, right?" 

"He wasn't exactly hiding." You don't need to look up to hear the dry tone in his voice. 

"True." Okay, you have no clue how to say any of this. So, deep breath and talk without thinking? Yep, good plan. "Okay, he's my soulmate, so he's the one who's getting the crap beaten out of him every time I show you the marks and it's his brother doing it and if he goes home he's either going to get hurt again or his brother's going to pack everything up and move to I don't even know where, or both, and I'm really not up for having either of those happen because A he doesn't deserve it and B he's my soulmate—" 

Okay, you're out of breath. 

"Oh." 

"Oh?" Seriously, that's the most anxiety-inducing thing he could've possibly said. "Oh, that's a shame? Oh, he has to go home anyway, there's not really anything we can do about this? Oh, why are you telling me this? I need more feedback here please, dad." Although looking up from Venkman would probably give you some context clues, honestly. Not that you're going to do it yet. 

"Oh, I hope you have the brother's number so I can at least try to resolve this peacefully." 

"Dave will if I don't." You don't think you do, either. You've had exactly two interactions with him, ever—once when you went to their apartment to return a book Dave accidentally left with you, and once when he showed up to pick up Dave early from a sleepover. He creeped you out, honestly—you don't know if it was the weird-shaped, mirrored shades (probably not; Dave picked up the habit of wearing sunglasses literally all the time from him, so you're used to that), the blank look on his face, or just something about him in general, but you were just glad that your contact with him was that brief. The new info you got today has deepened your vague misgivings into something between hate and abject fear, though. "He really can't go back, though...you saw the scars." 

"I did. And they're all from this brother?" 

"I think so—" 

"Yeah, they're all from Bro." Dave's voice from behind you makes you jump guiltily, but he just gives you a tired smile when you turn to look at him. (He's wearing your shirt, one that's too big even for you and hangs almost to his knees, sleeves bunched up around his wrists.) "Well. Ninety percent. There's a couple I'm not gonna put on him, but I can fucking point at most and give you a play-by-play of how he kicked my ass that time." He blinks, goes to push his shades up and obviously realizes halfway that he left them in the other room, shoving his hair out of his face instead. "Goddamnit." 

"Language, David," your dad chides, but there's no bite in this voice. 

"Sorry." It's a mumble. He's fidgeting with the too-long sleeves, trying not to look up. "I—sorry. I'm sorry." 

Okay, that's fear. Again. 

"Dad needs your Bro's phone number." Dave looks up at you, at that, eyes going wide and even more scared. "Dave, you're not going back, I swear, but—" 

"No, I got it." Dave nods, too quickly, and digs his phone out of his pocket, tossing it to you. (You really wish he'd give you more warning; it very nearly just ends up on the floor.) "He's in the contacts. The first one. 'Bro.'" He watches as you find the number and hand the phone to your dad, sighing nervously. "Any chance I can take the bunny and be somewhere else when you make that call, though? Sorry, I just—" 

"Dave, it's okay." You glance at your dad as you pick up Venkman's cage. He nods, but even if he'd said for you to stay you would've taken Dave back in the other room first. "Come on." 

You hear your dad say, "Hello? Mr. Strider?" in his most polite your-shit's-fucked-now voice as the door to your room shuts behind you. Dave relaxes a little as you set the cage on the floor, sitting down next to it and opening the door so he can reach in to mess with Venkman's ears. 

"You okay?" 

"Fine." He looks like that's a lie, though. Venkman sniffs at his fingers for a minute before chomping down, a lot harder than he bit you, but Dave actually laughs as he pulls his hand back. "Shit, you're an asshole, lil' dude...hey, John." 

"What—" You shut up as he grabs your hand with the one that didn't get bitten, pulling you down and holding your hand up next to his. He's bleeding from three little crescent-shapes tears in one finger, and on your hand brighter red is rising in a pattern that matches exactly, darkening and filling in as blood wells up in his cuts. "Oh." 

Okay, that's cool as hell. 

Dave's still looking at it when you glance up at him, but he looks up at you after a moment. "You okay with this?" he asks you, loosening his grip on your hand enough that you could pull away if you wanted to. "Like, if you're not—" 

"Oh my god, stop." 

"What? It's an understandable question, I don't know how the fuck you feel about this shit—" 

"So you want to ignore this?" You raise your hand, wiggling the marked finger at him. 

"No!" He blinks, like he's surprised at how loud that came out, then shakes his head. "...just. You realize it's gay, right?" 

"It's not—" Okay, yeah, it really is. You having Dave as a soulmate is the literal definition of gay. "Okay, so it's gay." And because you don't actually have the ability to filter anything that comes out of your own mouth, "Hey, this means I was right every time I called something you did gay!" 

"Dude." Dave stares at you for a couple seconds. Then he just starts laughing, trying to stifle it at first and then just giving up. And of course you're laughing because he's laughing, and Venkman takes the opportunity to hop out of his cage and start chewing on Dave's discarded shirt. By the time Dave calms down and disentangles rabbit and clothing, there's a big enough hole for him to put his whole hand through. 

You want to start laughing again as he does just that. "Fuck, sorry—" 

"Nah. Forget the shirt." He shrugs, balling it up and putting it in the cage with Venkman. "Yours is better anyway." 

"What, so you're going to just steal my clothes now? People are going to think we're dating." 

He hesitates for long enough that you regret saying that. When he does answer, it's just one word and a grin that's surprisingly nervous. "Good." 

Okay, so both of you are going to need to work on this soulmate thing.


	4. Chapter 4

When you come into the kitchen twenty minutes later your dad's still on the phone. It takes you a minute of listening to figure out that he's talking to somebody from school, trying to make arrangements for both you and Dave to be absent tomorrow. Okay, so you're going to assume the previous conversation went well. 

You wait until he pulls the phone away from his ear and glares at it to say anything. 

"So what'd he say?" 

"That an actual parent or guardian has to be the one to request sanctioned absence because of—" 

"Dad. Come on." 

He just sighs, raising the phone again. "I'm on hold." 

"Is he going to try to get Dave back?" 

"We're going to pick up David's things tomorrow." Another annoyed look at the phone. "Assuming they ever give me an answer on taking him out of school for the day." 

It can't possibly be that easy. 

"That's it? What did you say to him?" Dave really isn't going to believe it, if it actually is this simple. "Is he going to be there?" If he is, you're going to have to figure out where you can buy pepper spray before tomorrow...

"Probably, it's not important, and I have no idea. Respectively." He pulls the phone down, frowns at it for a moment, than hands it to you. "Put it on speaker, please? But I did emphatically suggest that he not be present when we were." 

"He better not be." Rationally, you know you can't physically hurt Dave's bro. Your actual mental state right now, though? "If I see him I'm going to kill him." 

That earns you a disapproving look. "Let's hope you don't see him, then." 

Yeah, you actually agree with that. You trust neither your ability to just walk away from Dave's bro, nor your chances in a fight against him. The reality here is that you know you'd try to hit him, maybe do it once if you were lucky, then get your ass kicked. 

"John?" 

Your dad has been talking for at least thirty seconds and you heard exactly none of it. 

"Uh, what?" 

"Order pizza. This could take a while."


	5. Chapter 5

You wake up at fuck o'clock at night, mostly because of the soft red light on your face. Dave, again. 

This time you're a little more careful making your way to the living room, especially since everything's in the wrong place due to the couch being folded out so Dave can sleep on it. He's actually huddled on the corner, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He doesn't look up until you manage to slam your leg against the coffee table. 

"John. Hey." Your night vision sucks, but even with your glasses off you can tell that the smile he offers you isn't even a little bit convincing. "You oughta be sleeping, man..."

"And you shouldn't?" You sit down by him, leaving a little bit of space. That space exists for maybe two seconds before Dave reluctantly uncurls and scoots closer, very carefully not looking up as he leans against you. "You okay?" 

There's a hesitation before he makes an extremely neutral noise, and an even longer one before he actually says anything. You use those to try to decide whether it's okay to wrap your arm around his shoulders. The end result is that you're still not sure, but you do it anyway, and he actually relaxes a little. 

"...define 'okay.'" Dave glances up at you as he says it, sighing and starting to wipe at his face. "God, you look like you tried to eat a glowstick, I must be a fuckin' mess." 

"I mean, yeah, you are a mess. Not that I care." He is evading the original question. You can either keep trying to get an answer, or ask another one. "How long've you been up, anyway?" 

He shrugs, wincing as the movement pushes his bad arm against your hand and shifting to get rid of the pressure. "Kind of never fell asleep." 

"Dave." 

"Can't help it, okay? I—" He stops, takes a deep breath, and continues in a slightly less defensive tone. "I can't stop thinking about shit. What's gonna go down tomorrow, whether I'm just fucking delusional and I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and none of this happened at all, if the next time I look over at you or at me the marks are gonna be gone because I'm too fucking messed up to be anybody's soulmate, let alone yours—" 

"Dave, hey. Stop." He's almost-silently crying again, shaking his head and pressing his face against your shoulder when you try to wipe the tears away. "You're not delusional, I swear." 

"You don't know that." His voice is muffled, and it doesn't get any better when you pull him half into your lap so you can wrap your arms around him. "You'd say that even if I was, anyway, that's the shit I'd want you to tell me—" 

"Do I feel like a delusion?" 

"...no." 

"There you go." He just huffs at you, gingerly wrapping his arms around your waist. Still doesn't look up. "You don't just stop being soulmates, either. It doesn't work like that." 

"Might. You ever researched it? The connection breaks, sometimes, if shit changes—" 

"Yeah right." You actually don't know enough about it to know if that's true or not. It probably is—when he's not messing with you, Dave's info is almost always accurate, and there's no way he'd mess with you about this. "You really think it'd change anything, even if that did happen? I'm not going to just ditch you, Dave." 

He's quiet for what could be a long time. Then, "You don't gotta feel like you have to...like we need to be...fuck." The noise he makes is quiet and frustrated, and his grip on you tightens for a second before he eases up again. "...don't think you owe me anything. You don't, I swear to god—" 

"Dave? Stop talking." This time you don't stop pulling at him until he does look up, putting your hands on the sides of his face and waiting until he actually looks at you. "I love you, okay? If you want me to do it as just a friend, I can handle that—" 

"I don't." He's struggling to keep his expression neutral, and really failing, and when you wipe at the tears on his cheek with your thumb he just gives up, his eyes closing and his face twisting up as he leans into your hands. "Really, really don't want the just-friends shit, you're always gonna be my best friend but I'm still in love with you and I want—" 

"Shh." He twitches when you lean your forehead against his, but doesn't open his eyes. "I'm not the expert on the soulmate shit, okay? But I'm pretty sure it happens because I love you, it's not like the dumbass marks are why I love you. You're why I love you, as a friend or a boyfriend or a soulmate or whatever the hell you want to call it. The marks just...let me know it's okay." 

"It's definitely okay. It's okay." Dave shudders, exhales like he's been holding his breath for entirely too long, and blinks at you. "Love you." 

"I love you too." You lean back from him, gently pushing him off your lap and pulling him up as you get to your feet. "Come on. You're not sleeping on the couch." 

"You don't have to—" 

"Shut the hell up and come on, Dave." 

And with a little tugging on your part, he does. 

Getting him to lie down and shut up? That's another story. You have to reassure him that yes, there is enough room on the bed for both of you. No, you're not letting him just sleep on the floor. No, he doesn't get to go back in the other room—he isn't going to sleep if he does that, and you both know it. Yes, he's allowed to curl up as close to you as he can possibly get. In fact, that's how you want it. 

When Dave finally settles, he's asleep before you even really get adjusted to having him this close to you. He actually curls up closer in his sleep, burying his face in your shirt and looping one arm around your neck. 

This is definitely better. Now all you need to do is stop looking at him and go to sleep yourself.


	6. Chapter 6

Dave's not in your room when you wake up, and one of your t-shirts and your favorite hoodie aren't there either. He hasn't been gone too long, though—Venkman's still irritably crunching at his fresh bowl of pellets, and you know he'll finish a full bowl of them in under five minutes. There's absolutely no reason to be worried about Dave right now. 

That doesn't stop you from automatically checking yourself for new marks as you get changed. There aren't any, of course. Although the one on your arm looks a little brighter than you expected. That's concerning for the five minutes it takes you to find Dave...who's sitting on the now-folded-up couch with the first aid kit from the bathroom next to him, shooting wary looks towards the kitchen as he wraps a bandage loosely around his arm. 

He gives you a quick smile as you sit down next to him, though. "Your dad gets up hella early, dude."

"Don't tell me he woke you up." 

"Nah. Scared the shit outta me coming in the bathroom when I was trying to get this shit fixed up again, though." He shrugs, carefully tapping his now-bandaged arm before grabbing your hoodie off the arm of the couch and pulling it on. "Is he gonna be pissed if I don't eat breakfast?" 

"Dad doesn't do 'pissed.'" Well, except maybe with Dave's bro last night. But it takes a lot to get your dad noticeably angry. "The worst he's going to do is look at you disapprovingly and keep trying to feed you. You should still eat, though." 

You can't see his eyes behind his shades, but you get the feeling he just rolled them at you. "Yeah, no. Not gonna happen." 

"C'mon, Dave. You're already as skinny as you can get." You're trying for a teasing tone, and you fail and land on either concerned or nagging instead. Well, heck. 

"Shut up," he mumbles, shaking his head and leaning against you. "Don't be such a mom." 

"I think I'm offended that you jump right to 'mom' and don't even stop on 'soulmate.' Besides, you need somebody worrying about you, right?" 

"Nah." 

"Okay, now you're the one who needs to shut up." 

"Do not..." Dave groans when you reach up to mess up his hair, but he's grinning now too, catching your hand and pulling it down to look at it. It's the one with the marks from where Venkman bit him yesterday, and he brushes his fingers across that spot. "You know how weird looking at them is?" 

"Kind of. I just hope I don't have to look at any more on me. I've definitely seen enough for pretty much ever." He glances up at you for a second, and you catch a shadow of red eyes behind his shades before he kisses your finger. "Oh my god, Dave—you're such a cheesy fuck, you know that?" 

"Call it irony." He doesn't let go of your hand, though. The way he's smiling at you almost seems like a challenge. 

Even if it is a challenge, this probably isn't how you're supposed to answer it, but fuck it. You reach up with your free hand, push his shades up, and kiss where he's marked from your black eye, on the side of his face. 

He goes very still when he figures out what you're doing, blinking at you when you pull back again. "And I'm the cheesy fuck here?" 

"Well, you're the one who's blushing." 

"Fuck you, you're blushing too." He doesn't try to deny that he's gone bright red, though. "Guess what." 

"You're a cute dumbass?" 

This time you get to see the eye-roll. "You mean you're a cute dumbass, not me, and that's not what, anyway." Dave leans forward, the hand that's not holding yours coming up to hold you still as he presses his lips against yours for just a couple seconds. He really doesn't need to hold you, honestly; you're too surprised to move even when he pulls back. "There you go." The look on his face is entirely too pleased with himself. "Even if shit hits the fan when we go over to get my stuff and I don't come back home with you—" 

"I promise that won't happen—" 

"If, I said if—if it happens, you still get to have kissed your soulmate, right?" He grins at you again, and you realize that under the shades and the smile he's terrified. "Like, you think shit's gonna be okay and I really hope you're right, but fuck, you do get that it might not be, right? Even if you don't know him, you've gotta know there's a big fucking chance I—" 

"Dave, shh." And he does stop talking, his grin faltering for a second before it just dissolves into an anxious expression. You almost expect him to flinch back when you put your hand on his shoulder, but at least that didn't happen. "I'm not coming home without you." 

"You can't—" 

"Watch me." He tenses up like he's expecting you to hit him for a second when you kiss him. It's only a second, though; then he relaxes, leaning against you and exhaling shakily as his mouth moves off yours. "You don't have to come, you know. Dad and I can get your stuff and bring it back, it wouldn't be that big of a deal." 

Dave laughs, sighs, and pulls away from you, fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves. "I'm not a fucking coward, John. I mean, I'm acting like one—" 

"Yeah, no." 

"—but I'm still going." The stubborn look he gives you is unfairly endearing. "If anybody stays it should be you."

"Fuck you, Strider." 

"Yeah, that's what I thought."


	7. Chapter 7

Your dad stays out in the car because Dave asks him to at least six times during the drive over. If Dave really got what he wanted you'd be sitting out there too, but you can be (almost) as stubborn as he is when necessary. He still tries to argue you back into the car for the first couple minutes. 

By the time he hits the button for his floor in the elevator, he's stopped arguing, though. Stopped talking at all. This stupid elevator's the slowest you've ever been on, and by the time it shudders to a stop Dave's pressed right up against you, staring at the door like he expects something horrible to come through when it opens. 

To be fair, you catch yourself holding your breath as the doors slide open. 

There's nothing there but empty hallway, of course, and Dave exhales shakily and grabs your hand hard enough to hurt, pulling you out of the elevator. You've got your phone in your free hand, and as he half-drags you down the hall you check it again, make sure it's on and you've got your dad's number up and ready. If anything happens you only have to push one button to call him. 

Nothing's going to happen, you have to keep telling yourself. Dave's scared, that's understandable, and it's rubbing off on you, and that's also understandable, but nothing's going to happen. 

"He's not there," you tell Dave, because he's just stopped at the door to his apartment, and doesn't seem to want to do anything other than stare at it. "You sure you don't want to go back down to the car?" 

"And leave you up here alone on the off chance he _is_ here?" He frowns at you, adjusts his shades, and shakes his head, finally reaching to check the doorknob. "Fuck that." 

The door's not locked, but that doesn't seem to reassure Dave in the slightest. If anything, he tries to get up closer to you as you make your way through the living room and towards his room. He stops halfway, though, and you stop too because he's still got that deathgrip on your hand. "His shit's gone." 

"What?" Everything seems to be here to you—the television, a stack of DVDs on the coffee table, discarded shirt on the futon. But Dave's shaking his head as he looks around, a look of pure confusion spreading across his face. 

"Trust me, the stuff he cared about? It's not here. He—" Dave stops, shakes his head, and pulls you towards the half-open door to his own room. "Never mind. Let's get this over with, I want—I want to go home." 

You nod, and you let him pull you, and when he stalls at the door you push it all the way open and lead him through. His room's a mess, way more than it usually is, clothes and ripped-up pages from books and broken glass all over the floor. Again, you find yourself really hating Dave's bro. 

Dave, however, doesn't even seem to notice the mess. As soon as he steps inside, he's focused on a pile of papers on the bed, letting go of your hand so he can pick the up the top few. "John." 

"What?" You don't even know where to start with picking things up to take. 

" _John_ ," he says again, with a little more urgency in his voice, and shoves the papers into your face, so close you can't see what's written on them at all. "Fucking—he left the—oh, my god." Before you can take the papers out of his hands he's pulled them back, shuffling through them for a minute before sitting down. Not on the bed. On the floor. "Oh my god..." 

"Dave, what is it?" This whole situation is an anxiety-inducing clusterfuck, but he's legitimately scaring you right now. You try to shove some of the glass and clothes out of the way as you kneel down next to him, but at this point if you cut yourself then you fucking cut yourself. You'll deal with it. "What the fuck did he leave you?" 

He doesn't answer and he doesn't look up, but he passes you one of the papers. It's very official-looking and legal-y and whatever, but you only have to read the first couple lines to figure out that it's some kind of custody papers, made out for Dave E. Strider. When you work that out, you start to understand why Dave's sitting there leafing through the rest of them, his hands shaking and his breath catching every few seconds. 

When you put your hand on his shoulder Dave does look up, and fuck those shades for blocking most of your view of his face. "He fucking ditched me," he whispers. The level of stunned disbelief, relief, confusion in his voice? That hurts more than whatever sharp thing is digging into your leg. "He's gone, do you fucking get that, he ditched me and he's—he's done with me, if your dad signs these he fucking— _can't_ come take me back, oh my god, John..." 

Very carefully, he takes his shades off, folds the bows behind the lenses and sets them and the stack of papers back on the bed. His hands are steady now, you notice, and you have time to think that maybe he's calmed down a bit before he turns back around and more-or-less throws himself into your arms. 

(That's another thing you always thought was a figure of speech. Apparently not. As skinny as he is, Dave still almost knocks you over.) 

You've had him cry on you more in the last two days than he's cried in ten years. That, you can say with confidence. But the other times he kept himself under control, he didn't let it get to the point where he just completely lost it. He's doing it now, though—you've never heard anything like the noises he's making, sobs of pure pain and relief and holy fuck he's holding onto you so tight it hurts, and you're trying really hard not to do the same to him because you're worried about his cut arm. If you're hurting him you can't tell, though, and asking would be pointless. 

You hold onto him—gently, you think you're being gentle, you really hope you are—keep repeating slight variations of "it's okay, shh, you're okay," and wait for him to finish.

It takes a while. Long enough for you to hope your dad doesn't call the cops, and to worry about Dave's knees and the broken glass on the floor, and to start crying (because fuck, you were scared that he'd be right and you'd end up not being able to have him come home with you), and to make yourself stop crying again (because dammit John you can control yourself for once in your life if only so he doesn't see you crying too right now.)

Eventually, though, he stops shaking, his grip on you loosens a little, his sobs taper off into quiet whimpers and trail away into nothing but slightly-uneven breathing. When he does speak, his voice is soft and hoarse, like he might've strained it at least a little. "I'm fucking dreaming." 

"I'm not a dream." When he looks up at you you smile at him and bump your forehead gently against his, waiting for him to give you a tearstained smile in return. "This is real, it's really over, you're coming home with me. I promise." 

"Oh, god." Dave closes his eyes for a second, shaking his head just a little. Not enough to lose contact with you. When he does open his eyes and pull back to look at you, he laughs a bit, reaching up to trail his fingertips across your face. "You're just...red. All red. It's horrible, I'm sorry..." 

"Hey, we can fix that." Yes, you're surrounded by discarded clothing, but you're leery of broken glass bits or anything else Dave's bro might have booby-trapped it with, so pulling down your sleeve to start wiping at his face is the next logical choice. This time, he sits still to let you do it. "It's fine, it goes away..." 

He starts crying again before you finish, but he's calmer about it, and after a few minutes he catches your hand and pulls it down. "I'm good. I'm okay." He immediately throws that into question by sniffling and wiping at his eyes with his free hand, but you can believe it for now. "Let's. Let's get my shit? Go home?" 

Dave says it like he's still not sure that your answer's going to be positive, like he's not convinced, but you nod and you smile at him even though you're pretty sure you're crying again now too. Yeah, there's definitely traces of luminous blue on his face. "Fuck yes, we're doing that. Come on. Help me figure out what you're taking, get it down to Dad, and we can be done with this hellhole." 

You get a nod and one more hug, and then you both get up and start sorting. 

You're so glad he's with you, coming back with you. So glad you won't see the marks across your skin and know the guy you love is getting hurt. You're so glad he's going to be okay. So glad he's finally safe. 

So glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well fuck I actually finished it.


End file.
